Holtz Realty

Just Another Zip Code

It was quite the chilly one out this morning which was another reminder to us all that our days are growing shorter and Fall will soon be upon us. I think more people are finally kick-starting themselves and getting their over-due outdoor projects underway before we re-enter the deep freeze.

As I was pulling up to my office this morning, the people from Country Landscapes were busy tearing up all the near perfect pavers in front of my building, and making quite the mess as they were doing it, and of course yours truly will have to go out early tomorrow morning and sweep up all the clods of tar they dug out of the cracks in the street before they’re mashed down. I don’t have a problem cleaning up a mess I make, but you can be sure I do bristle when cleaning up after someone else, especially when they’re the ones who’re supposed to be responsible, and above all, getting paid for it.

While on my way to an appointment in the Downtown, an interesting thought came to mind, and that being how much different companies and government agencies are in these times when it comes to making repairs and improvements. Have you noticed of late how nearly all projects with say Alliant Energy and our City’s repair/improvement contracts are sub’ed out to other far away companies?

This is a sharp contrast to years ago when companies and public entities did the work themselves. City street crews would replace and/or repair whatever was needed, with the exception of paving entire streets and highways. I also remember when Interstate Power, which is now Alliant Energy, had their own crews.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it must be all about liability, insurance, tenure, payroll, and all the other things that most big companies and public entities don’t want deal with any longer. I get it, but the down-side of this, is that we’re seeing all the more sloppy work being done because there’s not enough over-sight on the quality of work being done by these out-of-town, and oft times out-of-State companies that send in their crews, burn thru their contracted work, and then fly off to their next project.

I think you see where I’m going with this don’t you? All the more in our general public are not truly getting what we’re paying for because most of those fly-in and fly-out companies know that once their jobs are “signed-off” and paid for, they’re free from being called back to re-do something that was of inferior quality or incorrectly installed. It’s human nature to just take your check and move on because there aren’t any threads that bind them to our community. For most of them, we’re just another zip code on a map of the Midwest. You’ll understand my point whenever hearing me harp about the growing mindsets of companies that place greed above everything else.

I had to laugh this afternoon when noticing 125 – 11th St. NE having been listed for sale at the whopping price of $50K. Wow! That house was a major eye-sore for many moons and if you want to hear the real story, I’m sure there are several neighbors who’ll give you an ear-full. That particular house has traveled quite the trail of tears these past years. It was an FHA foreclosure that was sold dirt cheap to a supposed owner-occupant who decided to tear the “yell” out it, and then left it set. Then comes a tax-sale LLC that bought the unpaid taxes on it and then paid them long enough to where it could get title to it. As soon as they took title, there was at least one monster dumpster parked in the driveway for days. So there you have my story regarding that overly-abused home that sat there for months on end with windows broken out which exposed its interior to the elements. I’m not even going to talk about the “supposed” animals that were living inside. The sad part about it, is that I sold that home a number of years ago for a woman who decided to go into an apartment after owning it a very many years with her husband while rearing some of the nicest children who grew up to be pillars of our community. So sad.

I have an afternoon appointment tomorrow over in Clear Lake to show the Lady Bug Restaurant. I’m hoping the buyers see as much value going forward with it as I do. You can believe it when saying I’ve seen how busy they’ve been, and heard the rave reviews about it from the general public since it opened several years ago. If there’s anyone in North Iowa who has the savvy for running a restaurant, The Lady Bug is a slam dunk of a deal just waiting for the right entrepreneur. It’s too bad we’ve listed it toward the end of the season instead of the beginning, but in my mind, there are the upsides of having all the more time to get it tweaked for a stellar run next year. Help me get the word out regarding this once-in-a -lifetime opportunity to own a popular money-making restaurant.

Tonight’s one-liner is: The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.

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